fresh meat broth at once.  Little Maurice went into the sick-room, and standing beside the bed looked carefully into the face of old Maurice.  The eyes were feverish, the forehead puckered with pain, the hands hot and growing thin.  Then he turned away, followed his mother outside, and, after a brief talk with her, he reached up for his father’s gun, took the stock of ammunition and dry biscuits, whistled for his dog, and, a moment later, was swallowed up in the forest.

The long day slipped by; hour after hour Mrs. Delorme would go to the door, shade her eyes with her hand, and look keenly up the mountain slopes, with their wilderness of pines.  Once she saw a faint, blue puff of smoke, and her quick ear caught the sharp crack of a far-off rifle.  Then all was silent for hours.  The warm September sun had dropped behind the western peaks, and the canyons were purpling with oncoming twilight, when two quick successive shots broke the evening stillness, and echoed like a salute of twenty-one guns far down the valley.  Mrs. Delorme ran once again to the door.  The shots could not have been five hundred yards distant, for down through the firs came Royal, the magnificent hound, whining and grinning and licking his mouth with delight, and, behind him, Maurice, shouting that he had killed a deer, and was hungry enough to eat half of it himself.

“And, mother,” he cried, “I could have got the game at noon to-day, but Royal and I have been hours and hours closing in on him, getting him into the runway, so that, when I did drop him, it would be near home, for I could never pack his carcass all that way.  He must weigh two hundred and fifty pounds.  Oh, but he’s a fat one.  And here are some mountain grouse Roy and I got.  Daddy will have all the broth he can drink, and you and old Roy here and I will have some venison steaks for supper!”

So, breathless and proud and excited, Maurice chattered on, preparing a huge knife to quarter the deer, the more easily to pack it home.

There was great rejoicing in the log shack that night.  Old Maurice swallowed his bowl of hot grouse soup with relish, and clasped his son’s hand with the firm grip one man gives to another.  The anxious lines left Mrs. Delorme’s face, as she laughed and praised young Maurice’s prowess as a bread-winner.  Royal stretched his long, lithe legs, yawning audibly with weariness and content as he lay beside the stove sniffing the appetizing smells of broiling steaks, knowing well his share would be generous after his long and faithful hunt and obedience to his young master.  And so the little mountain home was well supplied with fresh meat, hot soups, smoked venison hams and dried flitches, until the day of fresh supplies, when the primitive steamer tooted its shrill whistle far down the lake, and Mrs. Delorme, young Maurice and Royal all went down to greet the first fellow-beings they had seen for a month, and to receive and care for seven bags of His Majesty’s mails, bound for the distant gold mines.